Today's mass shooting in the US

Lord-Jaffa said:
All of which is irrelevant if someone decides to break the law and murder someone. Do you think the truck rampage terrorists care about training, licenses and insurance LOL? Murder is illegal, the legal system in the US is far harsher than ours, it's no deterrent at all to criminals, nor would any gun regulation be. What is so difficult to understand here? What regulation would you suggest they could implement that would have any impact at all on homicides that they haven't already. 200 odd million legal gun owners and a fraction of a percentage who break the law with them, should we ban vehicles because some people drive without a license and insurance? PC culture doesn't allow America to get a grip on homicide rates in the same way as knife crime isn't addressed in London. People want to blame the government and strip every single freedom for everyone else rather than make criminals take personal responsibility, its pathetic.

You have also ignored that the states/cities with the toughest of gun laws (hows Chicago doing?), have pretty much the highest gun crime and homicide rates, so yeah that's really working well isn't it, who would have thought that criminals don't give a toss about regulations! Idiotic.
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However a lot harder to acquire a firearm legally or illegally with proper regulation in place - in that context in the UK for instance it is far easier for someone intent on no good to get behind the wheel of a vehicle.

As has been pointed out before the problem with the likes of Chicago is someone can travel ~30 miles to a state with different laws and back and no control of the flow of weapons over state lines.

StriderX said:
There have been as much days in a year that there have been mass shootings in the US, how many "mass stabbings" have there been in the UK?

There's been one mass shooting since the 90s, ONE. Other massacres have been combined (with vehicle) or bombings. You can run away from a knife, not so easy from a bullet going at mach 1+.

Think that covers this ****** argument about knives.
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Albeit drugs related there was a mass stabbing in the town I used to live in a few months back - 6 injured 2 seriously. It isn't so easy to run away if you don't have an exit route and/or not aware in time. Again drugs related but back in the 90s in the same town there were several stabbings in nightclubs in one case 5 people seriously injured IIRC.
 
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McGraw said:
I’m not sure how much you really know about guns.

What even is a high powered rifle?

Why would you choose a semi auto gun for a killing spree?
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Intermediate rifle caliber and usually the choice of those who've watched too many movies/games and fancy themselves as a bit of an "operative". They actually are quite a way down the list in terms of effective firearms for those kind of shootings - not that I'm going to elaborate on what is better...
 
Roar87 said:
Can you chamber an AR-15 in either of those calibres? Do you need that much stopping power for soft targets at the expense of recoil, noise, cost of rounds, smaller magazines, weight, etc?
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For me it just rubs me up the wrong way when people, even with good intentions, spread sensationalist rhetoric, often either knowingly or uncaringly perpetuating misinformation to sell their agenda as that is how injustices are done (or sometimes a lot of effort is wasted chasing the wrong solution).

Like the whole hysteria about assault weapons.

EDIT: I'm just posting in general here I'm not intending this directly as a reply to or pointed at anyone specifically in this thread.
 
dowie said:
"ackshually assault rifles are capable of fully automatic or burst fire, you mean assault weapons" etc.. it is a minor semantic point. The point still remains that civilians don't need to own a semi auto "full-bore" rifle, especially not the AR15 or AK47 civilian variants - military style weapons complete with high capacity magazines.
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For instance with that hysteria often the focus is on banning specific looking weapons while weapons equally effective get overlooked or as a blanket to ban all firearms, etc.

Civilians don't need to own a lot of things there needs to be some care in how far we let a tiny number of mad people dictate the rules of society.
 
Roar87 said:
I'm confused as to the point he was trying to make, which was seemingly just to go "lol you don't really know about guns, you've just played a lot of video games and think you do", despite everyone having access to the internet and being able to research any topic in as much exhaustive detail as they would like - which is something I'm sad enough to frequently do on topics that interest me
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You seem to have confused two of my posts there. My comments about video games was about why certain firearms are selected to use in some of the high profile mass shootings.

adolf hamster said:
considering intermediate caliber rifles (ie 5.56/7.62*39/5.45*39 etc) are the choice of most armies around the world when it comes to the task of dispatching their fellow man to an early grave i'm curious as to how they aren't an effective choice for a civilian who's dastardly plans involve doing the same?

or maybe i'm confusing the point you're trying to make here.
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I don't really want to elaborate too much but if you are trying to kill a lot of civilians in what is usually a relatively enclosed space that is a different scenario to your typical battlefield environment. But the point wasn't that these weapons are ineffective.
 
Roar87 said:
Maybe you could tell us what the point was rather than what the point wasn't
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I was talking about people using hysterical/sensational rhetoric with abandon i.e. talking about AR-15s as high power because it sells their agenda better than being more accurate. Then you end up with situations like that department store in the US that was under pressure to remove all their military looking firearms because of the whole assault weapons things but aside from 1-2 AR-15 lines much of what they sold military looking was of the likes of the Crickett precision rifle - .22LR for pleasure shooting, etc. (as they mostly sold sports goods) meanwhile they are still selling the likes of the Mini-14 to much less drama about that.

StriderX said:
To be honest i dont get why they dont just make bombs. (well i do i guess, the difficulty is in procurement)
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Depends a bit on what kind of suspect you are talking about but with these kind of perpetrators like the last few shootings (and Oregon mall, Aurora, etc.) they don't seem the type really given to original thought, etc. and of the mindset really required for working with explosives especially if they have to improvise. I suspect they took quite a bit of instruction either directly or indirectly from what was posted on some of the more dubious message boards and/or even encouraged towards the ends of these kind of shootings there. They also seem to fancy themselves to some degree as some kind of operator or operative ( https://rainbow6.ubisoft.com/siege/en-gb/game-info/operators.aspx probably an influence especially the likes of Vigil ) and see themselves shooting it out in that style rather than blowing stuff up indiscriminately.

EDIT: Though the Aurora shooter did actually rig his home with explosives.
 
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dowie said:
Well perhaps his point was that given any shots that hit, a larger caliber rifle would be more likely to kill the target, not to mention more likely to penetrate any available cover they might have... and old school SLR firing 7.62 is only semi automatic but would be absolutely fine for a killing spree not to mention posing a bit more of an issue for any regular police responding and hiding behind their car doors etc..

Modern assault rifles or semi auto civilian variants firing 5.56 would perhaps allow for more ammunition to be carried but also perhaps a greater chance of wounding rather than killing... which is of course sometimes useful in war as the enemy can be tied up dealing with casualties too. At least that is the idea. Though the army did reintroduce 7.62 rifles into infantry sections in Afghanistan.
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My point more specifically in response to Roar87 though still meant in a more general sense than being critical of him/her was that banding around things like high power in respect to AR-15s is a distortion of the more technical details and is more about the emotional appeal using sensational terms, etc. with little care for understanding - which actually isn't very helpful in terms of effective firearms control because people end up pushing for things that don't necessarily match up with reality - like with "assault weapons" where the pressure on one sporting goods store mostly ended up with the removal of military looking but low power sports rifles and a small number of AR-15 lines and then they lost interest having accomplished that while the store still sells a variety of mini 14 type firearms, etc.
 
dowie said:
They started replacing the SLR in the mid 80s so unless his unit was way down the list in terms of getting new equipment then I’d assume he was using 5.56 by the early 90s.
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Reminds me of camping once somewhere around 2000 and this bunch of reservist type turned up to camp nearby - not quite sure what they were because they had (not with them) issued weapons - not TA but not regular army and were having a good bitch because they'd recently had their SLRs replaced.
 
dowie said:
They had SLRs up to around 2000??? Even cadet forces had the cadet version (L98)by then. Probably some old timers moaning years later, I doubt it was a recent thing at that time.
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No idea on details - just remembering they were having a good moan. Whole thing seemed quite irregular if it wasn't for they were being picked up by a military plated 3 ton truck I wouldn't even be sure they weren't just playing soldier.

EDIT: Can't remember where now but they were off to some training thing near the Elan valley.
 
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Or people panicking and reporting anything vaguely suspicious though does look a bit dubious.

Carrying gun(s) in a pickup is not exactly unusual in Texas.
 
DB_SamX said:
Amazing and stupid to try this at the same time imo.

BBC say he was charged with making a terrorist threat. From what I read, there was no evidence he did that so wonder if he'll really be prosecuted!?

It's very hypocritical of Walmart especially. They openly sell guns yet someone walks in with their goods (so to speak) and people panic. He could have claimed he was there to return them.
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I'd imagine they have guidelines for firearms returns which would involve them being unloaded and boxed.
 
Lord-Jaffa said:
Stopped and held at gunpoint by an off duty fireman with a concealed carry permit. I thought guns were never used in this way???!!???! :confused:
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He was fortunate the fireman didn't shoot first ask questions later as he certainly could have done in that situation in light of ongoing events.
 
wesimmo said:
I love cars and attend tracks as a spectator, passenger and driver. All of those are risky. I choose to do them knowing the risks, I make a decision about my hobby and my risk.

Sport/casual shooting, on the other hand, has the potential for other people to be be put at risk with no decision on their part. I'd therefore put severe controls in place to minimise the risk to people who have no choice in the matter.
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Eh? most sport/casual shooting is done under range conditions with little difference in chance for bystander, etc. to be injured than at a motor sport event - even in the US if you started shooting for fun in a random field you'd probably end up with law enforcement turning up. Hunting a little different in that regard.
 
Screeeech said:
I've often wondered, 'would a gun have helped me at all' I honestly don't really think it would have, in hindsight I could have had a 9mm in the glovebox, got the drop on him as he approached. But in reality, I'm just a guy who works in I.T, I do shoot guns (a lot) and I'm a member of a gun club (Scottsdale Arizona) but I'm not a cop, I just don't have the training to deal with a situation like that.

In hindsight it's easy to think 'I would have done X or Y' but when a stressful situation like that occurs, fear takes it's toll - you freeze up, your thought process isn't the same as when you're bragging with your mates in the pub, fear is very very hard to control. I'm generally not a scardy cat at all, play Rugby, I'm pretty physical and strong (I have a criminal record for affray so I'm no stranger to having a tear up) but when something like that happens when you're on your own and not expecting it, it's a different kettle of fish altogether, I'm lucky I didn't freeze up and just sit there.

For a gun to have been useful in that situation, I would have to practise my draw, constantly, take god knows how many lessons and defense classes, and keep it up - year after year, in order to be effective, in terms of getting an effective shot, and/or dealing with the situation in a way which wouldn't result in me being killed, or ending up in jail for getting the whole thing wrong.

I've thought about that night, thousands of times, every other night I think about it - who the guy was, where is he now, what did he want, I've even driven past that same spot twenty times and I wonder each time how many different ways it could have played out, but in the end I'm alive.
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This rarely ends well as the other person, if armed, has the drop on you so to speak and already has an approach in mind i.e. whether they are going to hold you up at gunpoint or just kill you and steal your shoes. The uncertainty as to whether they situation warrants using a firearm defensively and doubt as to whether you've read the situation right, etc. again almost always has the victim on the back foot.

Though to be fair 9 times out of 10 if you are obviously armed someone just out to steal isn't committed to the situation escalating that far and will change their mind.
 
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